


wanting is not always better than having

by orphan_account



Series: The Final Frontier [4]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alien anatomy, Betazoid Bitty, Debrunite Jack, Established Relationship, First Time, Fluff, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Star Trek AU, discussions of bonding, discussions of pon farr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 07:49:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13829724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “How many years before pon farr?” Eric murmurs.Jack laughs quietly, a sleepy thing.  The lights dim, and Eric startles a little before settling in.  After a long silence, just when Eric thinks Jack isn’t going to answer him, his roughened voice says, “Three years, give or take.  So…plenty of time to practice.”





	wanting is not always better than having

**Author's Note:**

> For lady-pei who wanted to see Jack and Bitty's first time.
> 
> I do have a pon farr fic planned for later, but I thought this would be a good intro into their intimacy. I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching vulcan genitalia and sex practices and just borrowed a few things from fan-created ideas (most of which were about Spirk but still...) and I went with Jack being closer to humanoid than not, since he is half human, and since their race can interbreed with other humanoid races. But hopefully it still gives the impression of alien!jack.
> 
> After extensive research, I also decided that any race descended from proto-vulcans experience pon farr (in possibly different ways), and it's the Vulcans who practice koon-ut-kal-if-fee which Jack, as a Debrunite, would not.

“Jack? Can I…ask you something?”

Jack’s head turns, the flicker of a grin across his mouth, the gently quirked shrug of a shoulder instead of his customary eyebrow lift. The tops of his eyelids are especially green, maybe from the heat in the room because Eric had been cold and Jack was indulging him for as long as he could stand it, but the heat always made the blood rush to Jack’s face. “You can ask me anything, Imzadi.”

Eric would never get over the Betazed word tumbling over Jack’s careful, full lips. Hearing it makes his own cheeks bubble with pink, making the faint freckles stand out against the pale. “Pon Farr.”

And oh. Jack’s cheeks darken even further, until there’s splotches of forest color in them. “Ah.” The word is a little sharp, and Eric starts to feel panic at the wave of anxiety pouring off Jack, and he opens his mouth to take it back, but Jack’s hand reaches out, closing over his wrist. “You may ask. It is…a subject that is necessary to discuss between us.” He licks his lips, releases Eric’s hand, dropping both of his to his lap.

The two of them are in Eric’s room, sitting in a nest of blankets because Eric likes things soft and warm, and it shouldn’t work between them, but it does. Jack’s back is against the wall where the temperature has been adjusted to help suit him, and Eric is stretched out on his back near Jack’s feet. He had been holding Jack’s calf lightly, but he pulled his hands back when he felt Jack’s nerves fire up.

“It is true that all descendants of the Mintakans experience Pon Farr.” Jack’s voice is a little tight, and in a very human gesture, he clears his throat. “We do not have ceremony on Delta Vega. It is not the Debrune way.”

Eric nods. He’s a linguist, not an anthropologist or a sociologist, so he’s not well studied in a lot of races. He spent too many years trying to ignore his own culture so he didn’t get found out, and his ignorance, occasionally, felt humiliating.

Jack reaches out, perhaps because of the look on his face, and he closes his hand around Eric’s wrist again. Eric can feel a pulse of calming, of sweetness, of love. He can only imagine what it might feel like when they— _if_ they—bond. “I am a while now from my next Pon Farr, and it will not be…it is unlikely I will experience plak tow. Not with…well,” Jack’s cheeks darken further, and he can’t seem to look at Eric as he says, “I have you now, so…”

Eric sits up, making a happy noise in the back of his throat because he can’t help it. He shuffles next to Jack and ignores the frigid temperature of the wall against his skin which has warmed from the blankets, and he threads their fingers together. “Have you…before? It hits at puberty, right? Can I ask what it was like?”

Jack swallows thickly and says, “It was unpleasant. Like our Vulcan siblings, we are taught meditation when we are young—unlike the Vulcans, we do not choose bonding mates so early. So we endure alone.”

Eric feels a strange surge of pain, of a hollow loneliness leftover from Jack’s past, that still sits inside him, and he hates it. He shuffles closer, close as he can. “Have you ever…with someone else?”

“Twice,” Jack says, very soft and quiet, after a long pause. “Four years ago with Miss Collins.”

Eric nods, thinks he should be jealous, but it’s hard because he loves Captain Collins. They’ve met twice now, and he knows there was nothing romantic about her intimacy with Jack, nothing like he and Jack have. And it’s hard to feel anything but gratitude over this because it means someone who cared about Jack as a person was there with him last time. So he wasn’t alone.

But it’s the other one Eric’s worried about, because he has a feeling that…

“And the first was with…Captain Parson,” Jack says, quieter than he ever speaks, with more human inflection than is normal for him. “At the Academy.”

And Eric knows exactly what that means, knows what Jack was going through then, knows it must have been terrible.

He can’t help himself now, feeling this jumbled mess pouring out of Jack, so he takes him by the shoulders and bosses him into the covers, keeping them mostly off Jack, keeping Jack nestled near the cold wall, but close to Eric, with firm arms around him.

Eric kisses his jaw, kisses under his ear, holds him tight. “It won’t be like that ever again.”

Jack seems to be unable to stop the little, huffing laugh that escapes him. “I know, Ashayam.”

Eric preens a little, and he thinks maybe he should be feeling some type of way, because he and Jack haven’t gone _there_ yet. Eric’s never gone there with anyone before, in fact, never really thought he’d have the chance.

“What’s on your mind?” Jack asks.

“Betazoids don’t have mating rituals,” Eric starts a little slowly. “And I know my parents were…happy, in their own way. They don’t spend a lot of time together, but I paid attention when they were, and there’s love there. I think deep down I thought I’d find someone, some day. Something like they had, something beyond whatever arranged nonsense my mother tried to set me up with.” Eric takes a breath to let his mouth catch up with his thoughts. “I wasn’t sure I would ever…though. But now I have you and I…” Eric pushes himself up on his elbow to look at Jack, trying to show just how much he means this. “When it happens, I’m here. I want…I mean we haven’t yet, but I want…”

“I want it too.” The four words are so simple, spoken so plain like Jack couldn’t have possibly assumed anything else. He pulls Eric down, into a kiss that’s soft and easy, his lips plush and oddly warm against Eric’s own mouth.

When they break apart, Eric’s a little breathless and he’s smiling. “So is it _just_ pon farr or do you ever…”

“I do,” Jack says, and now _he’s_ a little breathless and his eyes are dilated which is unbelievably obvious with their light color. His grip on Eric has gone a little firm, and Eric can feel something new radiating from him, something he thought he’d caught wisps of before, but now it’s thick and heady.

Desire.

“Oh.” It’s all Eric can really say or think because then Jack’s dragging him on top of his body and he’s got his big, _big_ hands splayed over Eric’s back, holding him tight and their mouths are moving together now, tongues involved in a way that’s almost too much for Eric.

Jack seems to sense it, so he pulls back a little but he keeps his hands on Eric, one in the center of his back, the other carding up through his hair. “Talk to me.”

“I’ve never,” Eric says. “I’ve never, with anyone. So I’m not sure I know what to do. And if it’s different, and what…” he stops, then says, “I don’t know how to make it good for you.”

“Being with you will make it good for me,” Jack says, and there’s just so much sincerity in that, it makes Eric’s eyes go a little hot at the corners. “But we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“Lord, sweetheart,” Eric says, the words just kind of tumbling from his mouth. He stops the conversation to kiss Jack because what else can he possibly do right then. He’s so overwhelmed with just how much he feels for this man. “I want everything with you. I do. Really. Just tell me how to make it good.”

Jack hums, then he rolls Eric onto his side, and his hands slide up Eric’s shirt. They’re both in civvies, and actually Eric is in one of Jack’s shirts—a strange, alien material that is so soft, Eric feels like he’s wearing a cloud. And it’s a strange juxtaposition of feeling with the soft cloth, and Jack’s calloused hands now brushing up his front.

“We’re both half-human, and those urges,” Jack says, the tips of his ears a bright green, but he soldiers on determinedly, “I think they match. Debrune physiology is a lot like human. We can interbreed. Obviously,” he adds with a small laugh.

“Betazoids too,” Eric says, and then buries his slight embarrassment in the curve of Jack’s neck because lord it feels a little like heath class when he was a kid. His hands sort of twitch, then drift between them and feeling bold, bold, _bold_ , he brushes the flat of his hand along the bulge in Jack’s pants.

Jack grunts, and his hips arch a little, and Eric can feel Jack pulsing with need. “Yes. Okay,” Jack says, then a word Eric doesn’t know that has to be in Debrune, and it definitely sounds a little…filthy.

Eric’s still blushing so hot he feels dizzy with it, but he keeps his hands there, and rubs a little harder, and he makes a noise of encouragement when Jack flips him onto his back and kisses him hot, and wet, and filthy. Jack’s own hands brush up along Eric’s nipples, then down to where Eric is hard and wanting, and it’s the first time a hand other than his own has ever touched him there and oh _lord_.

“When we bond,” Jack says as his fingers work to get their clothes off, a deft movement more graceful than Eric thinks he could ever be in a moment like this where he feels so _desperate_ , “it’s going to be more than this. It’ll be intense.”

Eric nods, understanding because he knows it’s that way with the Betazoids too, and there’s going to be the release of a barrier between them and there won’t be any secrets anymore. He wants it, he thinks. He craves it. He has the desire to have more than just echoes of Jack’s want and desire hitting him.

“Pon farr,” Eric murmurs as Jack gets his colder body pressed against Eric’s warmer one, and his mouth doing _things_ to Eric’s neck. “When it happens, will it be like this?”

Jack pulls away and gives Eric a considering look, and there’s not even a hint of him being frustrated that Eric keeps delaying the inevitable. “I will not be as coherent as I am right now. It’s biology, a mating desire to be with the one you have chosen.”

“And that’s…me,” Eric says, though it comes out more like a question.

Jack softens, reaches up, touches Eric’s cheek. “That is you, Ashayam.”

Eric goes hot all over. “Okay.”

“If it frightens you, makes you nervous, we can certainly postpone and I can meditate through it so I won’t…”

“No,” Eric says, a little too loud, too rough. He clears his throat. “I mean, I don’t want that. It’s years away, anyway so by then we could be…we might…”

“Yes. I intend that we should bond before my pon farr,” Jack says, simple as anything. He kisses Eric on the corner of his mouth, brushes the side of his face so gently it almost hurts. “With the bond, you may feel it too. Especially since you are a Betazoid. But if we are together…”

“I’m not afraid,” Eric says, and that isn’t dishonest. He’s not afraid. He’s apprehensive and nervous because it’s all so new, and he still can’t believe that someone like Jack would want him—not just for some time, but forever—but nothing with Jack has ever made him afraid.

“Would you prefer that we stop this now?” Jack asks.

Eric furrows his brow in thought, then looks at Jack directly and holds up his fingers. Jack immediately reciprocates the gesture, touching his own to Eric’s, dragging them down his wrist. “I want you to show me what it will be like. Or … something like it.”

Jack’s eyes darken again, and he drops his hand to Eric’s waist. “I can do that.” Eric feels the heat and desire between them both ways—through what he’s getting from Jack, and what their bodies are physically responding to.

They’re naked, and Eric hasn’t dared look down yet, but the sheets have pooled near their calves, and his eyes flicker downward when Jack lifts his hips away.

There really isn’t much difference. Eric wonders if Jack was full Debrunite, would he look different than this? Eric might have never engaged in intimacy with anyone before, but he’s certainly _seen_ things. Jack’s body is greener than Eric’s flushed pink, and there are more ridges on his cock, and when it throbs, it almost shivers and it makes Eric fantasize about what that shiver would feel like inside of him and…oh. Lord.

He rolls his eyes back in his head and tries to breathe through it because he knows if he thinks too hard, this is going to be over before he’s ready. And he’s certainly not ready for _that_. Not his first time. Probably not his second time. But he wants it. Lord, does he want it.

Jack seems to be able to read him easily, and he carefully slots himself up against Eric’s own, painfully hard dick. Then his hand—huge in comparison to Eric’s, wraps around them. It’s a little awkward, but Jack’s cock shivers again, with his pulsing desire, and oh my _god_ it’s almost enough to make Eric come right there.

He reaches up, digs his fingers into Jack’s shoulders and murmurs, “I’m too…too close.”

“So let go,” Jack says back, then leans in and dips his tongue into Eric’s mouth in a rhythm that matches the way his hand strokes them.

Eric tries to last a minute longer, but he can’t. With Jack’s cock pulsing next to his own, and the _noises_ Jack is making against his mouth, and the way Jack feels both hot and cold at the same time…it’s too much. It sends him over the edge and his eyes squeeze shut and the orgasm which had been pooling in his belly hits him fast and sudden. He lets out a sharp cry, then an, “Unf unf unf,” as his hips twitch and he pushes himself in the ring of Jack’s fingers.

He barely notices when Jack comes too, a hot pulse between them, and their come is pooled in a small mess on his stomach which Jack drops right into, then rolls off. It’s quick to cool and a little awful, and also the best Eric has felt in maybe…ever.

He rolls to his side and he has a moment of anxiety like maybe it wasn’t any good and Jack’s going to change his mind. Except Jack’s waiting for him, to gather him close, to kiss him on his neck, his jaw, his mouth, his temple. Jack’s arms are cooling rapidly, which is a lot against Eric’s still overheated skin, but it’s also perfect in a way.

They lay there for some time, until Jack can’t stand the feeling of it, so he rises and goes to Eric’s bathroom and comes out with a warm washcloth. He cleans them up with perfunctory swipes, then he drops it into the laundry bin and lets himself curl back up, his back to the cold wall, his front pressed to Eric, his arms holding Eric tight.

He noses against the back of Eric’s neck, up into the shaved parts of his hairline, and lets out a contented hum—a strange noise coming from Jack. “Thank you,” Jack murmurs.

Eric wants to ask him what for, because he really didn’t do a whole damn lot besides lay there and let Jack bring him off, but then he thinks maybe it wasn’t about that. Not really. Maybe it’s about all of it. About their love, and their bonding, and their future. Eric gets it, because he feels all of that too, and he knows between the two of them, they have a mountain of past issues, but it doesn’t feel so daunting when he knows he’s not facing it alone anymore.

“How many years before pon farr?” Eric murmurs.

Jack laughs quietly, a sleepy thing. The lights dim, and Eric startles a little before settling in. After a long silence, just when Eric thinks Jack isn’t going to answer him, his roughened voice says, “Three years, give or take. So…plenty of time to practice.”

Eric rolls his eyes, but he quickly falls to sleep with a smile on his face.


End file.
